The big idea: A product analysis gathers information from a range of stakeholders — and the point is not breadth for its own sake.
Each group holds one kind of knowledge nobody else has, so asking them all the same question produces five versions of the same opinion.
Each group with what only they know, the question to ask them, and what you miss without them.
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| Stakeholder | What only they know | Ask them |
|---|---|---|
| Users | What happens when the product meets the task, and what they have stopped doing because of it | Give them the task, watch, then ask about the moments they hesitated |
| Manufacturers | Which features are expensive, which tolerances are fought over, where rejects come from | What costs the most to make, and what would you change to fix it? |
| Engineers | What the design is actually limited by — load, heat, fatigue, a standard | What is this closest to failing, and what number is it closest to? |
| Service and repair | What breaks, how often, and which repairs are refused as not worth doing | What do you replace most, and what do you tell customers not to fix? |
| Retail and client | Why it is bought or not bought, and what returns say | What do customers ask before buying, and what does the returns form say? |
Returns data is free research: Reasons written on returns forms are user research that already exists, in the client's own records, in quantity.
Asking for it before running any new study is one of the cheapest and most productive things a designer can do.
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The statement pairs testing with stakeholders deliberately. What people tell you and what the product does under test are different evidence, and the strongest finding is where they agree — or the most interesting one is where they do not.
What stakeholders give you
- Reasons, priorities and history
- The failures that never get reported to the manufacturer
- Cost and manufacturing constraints you could not know
- But: opinions, memory and hindsight
What testing gives you
- Numbers against a stated condition
- Behaviour, which people misreport about themselves
- A baseline your redesign will be measured against
- But: only the questions you thought to measure
The group nobody invites: Service engineers, cleaners, installers and the people who gave up on the product are rarely in the room — and between them they know what breaks, what cannot be cleaned, what will not fit through a door, and why somebody stopped buying it.
Naming who you did NOT ask, and what that costs, is a strong exam move.
How this is tested — identifying stakeholders who will help future development of a product. It comes up two ways:
Paper 1 — multiple choice
- Match a piece of knowledge to the stakeholder who holds it.
- Identify the stakeholder missing from a described study.
Paper 2 — analysing a product
- Identify the stakeholders for a named product and what each contributes.
- Explain why testing is run alongside stakeholder information.
The trap: Listing stakeholders. The marks are for what each one uniquely knows and the question you would ask them — a list of job titles earns almost nothing.
A manufacturer is redesigning a hospital bedside table. Identify four stakeholders it should gather information from, saying what each contributes and what to ask them.
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